In complex electronic systems, where multiple electronics modules are used in order to provide the necessary flexibility and functionality of the system, the design of each individual module may be unique. For each unique module, manufacturers and customers must constantly track, control, and maintain configurations for the module in order to ensure that replacement parts are available when failures within the electronic modules occur in the field. Thus, manufacturers and customers continually strive to reduce the number of the different configurations of manufactured and fielded electronic modules in order to reduce cost and improve the availability of an electronics systems constituent modules.
When two or more memory mezzanine modules are stacked one atop the other on a motherboard, signals which are intended to terminate at a single destination, as well as signals which originate from a single source, must be routed through at least one intervening module to the motherboard. However, this often requires that each board be unique in order to receive the appropriate single-destination signals from an adjacent module as well as to provide single-source signals to an adjacent module.
Thus, it is highly desirable to make use of identical modules in designs which employ single-source and single-destination signals. These reduces the number of modules that manufacturers and customers must track, control, and maintain in order to ensure that replacement parts are available when failures within the electronic modules occur in the field.